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Daily Archives: December 15, 2011

For days I’ve been staring at the pile of yarn on the dining room table – yarn that should be presents, and murmuring little reassuring things to myself. Things like "It’s okay, there’s lots of time" and "You can do it" and "Just stay on track."

Last night, after purchasing the last of the yarn that I needed at Knit Night, and then having a long walk home in the rain during which I had a good long think, I realized that I might have the wrong attitude. After carefully examining the amount of time remaining before C-day, and the amount of work left to accomplish, it would seem that these simple little reassuring messages I’m giving myself as I’m moseying through holiday prep are a collective pile of do-do. The message I should be giving myself is actually PANIC. FREAK OUT. YOU ARE OUT OF TIME and YOU SHOULD BE HYSTERICAL.

Still, this seems drastic and not particularly festive, so I have decided on another course of action. I’m going to hunker down hard on the knitting front for the next 48 hours. (This won’t be easy, considering that I have made a similar decision to hunker down on the cookie front, but I believe that Hank’s help is forthcoming there, so even though it’s a conflict, I have decided to ignore it entirely.) I’m going to spend 48 hours doing my level best to knit as much of that pile as I can, and then I’m going to re-assess and decide whether or not I should PANIC or FREAK OUT. I wouldn’t want to waste time on unnecessary feelings. In my experience, a proper Christmas freak out takes at least twenty minutes – since it must contain certain key phrases (YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW IMPORTANT THIS HAT IS) allegations of poor behaviour by supporting family members (MAYBE IF YOU EVER DID LAUNDRY I WOULD BE DONE BY NOW) along with various pessimistic views of the inevitable crappy holiday everyone is going to have if things don’t change, which of course… they can not. (WHY DON’T YOU CARE THAT CHRISTMAS IS RUINED.)Long story short, I don’t want to go there unless I really have to, so I’m going to make a huge pot of tea and re-double my efforts. (After I get back from the next round of errands and grocery shopping. Whatever. You know what I mean.)

Gifts for Knitters Day 15

Dear Non-knitter who loves a Knitter,

I’ve been trying to be pretty good about suggesting lots of different gifts at lots of different price points, and I’m even keeping in mind that as of now, the mail-order deadline has pretty much past. (You’ll see a shift in the next few days towards things you can buy in local stores, or make yourself.) Since I’ve been so diligent, I’m just going to come right out and say that this next gift is pricey.

It’s an ipad. I’m not even going to link to that because if you don’t know what an ipad is then it’s really the wrong gift for you to be buying. (Also, see your doctor. You might be dead.) I also don’t think you should buy an ipad just as a knitting tool, though if your knitter has ever expressed an interest in one, you should know that they are an amazing knitting tool. Not only does an ipad surf knitting blogs, Ravelry, etc, there’s also a lot of really great apps for knitters – not the least of which is my favourite, Goodreader. Goodreader turns an ipad into a powerful pattern manager. Not only can you connect to Ravelry and export your entire pdf library to the ipad (yeah, that’s right) once you open a pattern you can create a copy that you can mark up. You can circle things, highlight things (like your size) or leave yourself little notes (like that you did an extra decrease.) You can create a line, then slide that line up a chart as you complete each row – like a post it, only it never falls off. I used to be a hard core paper pattern gal, but now – my whole pdf pattern library with me all the time? C’mon. Your knitter would love that. An ipad can also function as an ipod, so your knitter can listen to tunes or an audiobook too, and it’s also an e-reader, so all his e-format knitting books can be with him too. It’s also a camera to take pictures of their knitting, and a great way to use social media to ask questions about knitting. I’ve got an app that functions as a needle gauge, another that’s a very fancy row counter, and if I were the type (which I’m not) I’d be hunting up an app that tells you how much yarn you need for what. There’s even a Ravelry group for knitters with ipads.

Now, I know that right now, some of you are thinking that knitting is the exact opposite of an ipad. That knitting is cozy and that knitters are grannies and that people who understand wool really well might not be that technologically inclined. I don’t have time to explain it really well, but let me just tell you this.

Knitting is binary (knit/purl.) Knitting is technology, engineering, and construction, and your knitter has a knack for it. Your knitter is a probably a geek.